Summer Book Study

At such a time as this, many of us are becoming more aware of the urgent need to grapple with our complicity in unjust and inequitable systems. To aid in our understanding Presbytery of Los Ranchos’s Christian Formation and Discipleship Network Team is offering a summer reading opportunity to all who want to dig deeper into issues of systemic racism, oppressive structures, and white privilege using Robin Di Angelo’s book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

“White Fragility is a vital, necessary, and beautiful book, a bracing call to white folk everywhere to see their whiteness for what it is and seize the opportunity to make things better now.” – Michael Eric Dyson

Groups will read approximately 50 pages per week and will consider our understandings of race, racism, and racial hierarchies. We will examine social constructs, how whiteness operates and why it is often invisible to those who benefit from it. Finally, we will think about the ways that whiteness manifests itself in our churches and church structures and how it marginalizes our BIPOC siblings.

The first round begins the week of June 28th and continues through July 16th. On the afternoons of July 2nd, 9th, and 16th we will gather via Zoom at 3:00 p.m. to reflect on the previous week’s reading using discussion questions provided to us by the Rev. Denise Anderson, Co-Moderator of the 222nd General Assembly of the PCUSA and Coordinator for Racial and Intercultural Justice at Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Compassion Peace and Justice. Readers in this first group will practice facilitating skills and will be encouraged to start a book group with friends, presbytery colleagues, and/or church members. Should interest in this initial opportunity exceed the recommended number of participants for good, in depth discussion we will form additional groups within the same time frame.

This work is not for the faint of heart. It will be difficult. We will be uncomfortable. But in daring to wrestle with painful truths, we can awaken to the task before us – doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly. And, hopefully we will be inspired to do more than read, but to listen, to stand up, to become allies in the struggle for a more equitable world.

If you would like more information or would like to sign-up, contact Spiritual Formation Consultant, Susan Young Thornton at [email protected].